Pete Docter and Bob Peterson, 2009
The wordless 10-minute prologue to Pixar's latest animation, summarising the entire lifetime of a woman from childhood to death, has reduced many an adult viewer to tears, although youngsters seem to be altogether less affected by this masterful little memento mori . There's plenty else to distract them - from the fanciful idea of a house borne aloft by billowing balloons to talking dogs, slapstick giant birds and thrilling airship battles. The adventure is so buoyant it carries along weighty issues of regret, memory and mortality without losing altitude - a perfect balance. Ages 4+
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Amy Heckerling, 1995
Slip some Jane Austen into the diet of even the most text-obsessed teen with this witty reworking of Emma starring Alicia Silverstone as the matchmaking lead; this time round a sassy, minted, west-coast 16-year-old who makes-over the uncool new kid at school (a breakthrough role for the late Brittany Murphy) with mixed results. It's great, snappy, genuinely funny stuff, with an important message at heart. The only real danger in exposing your offspring to it is that they're likely to spend the next year or so quoting it back to you. Ages 12+
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Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1946
If there's one topic parents dread explaining to their beloved youngsters, it's death. What happens when we die? If you're a person of faith, you'll have a readymade explanation, but if you're a bit more wishy-washy about things, you'll probably try some vague waffle about spirits and make a mental note to buy a pet fish. But here's an alternative to having to explain it yourself: a swooning Anglo-American romance with some bold metaphysical speculation and a wondrously detailed view of "the other world", with its enlightened celestial agora, show-stopping staircase and decidedly earthbound bureaucracy. It's nothing short of mind-expanding. Ages 10+
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Barry Sonnenfeld, 1993
A very dark delight: this sequel to the slightly gummy 1991 big-screen outing for American's creepiest, kookiest family is a film of unexpectedly adult wit. Angelica Huston and the late Raul Julia tango up a storm as Morticia and Gomez, and the young Christina Ricci puts in a career-defining performance as Wednesday, packed off to a chirpy summer camp run by Christine (Cybill) Baranski and Peter (Ally McBeal) MacNicol, once new baby Pubert arrives. Even more ominous is the arrival of a psychotically upbeat nanny (Joan Cusack) with dubious intentions towards baldy uncle Fester (Christopher Lloyd). Ages 12+
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Chris Noonan, 1995
Cute-critter films could never be the same again: look, they're talking! George "Mad Max" Miller produced this unbelievably charming story about a piglet who ends up competing against collies in a sheepdog trial. Adapted from Dick King-Smith's The Sheep-Pig, Babe's success set the bar for animal pics much, much higher than it had been before - it's doubtful if anyone's got anywhere near it since. Ages 5+
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David Hand, 1942
Today we have 3D digital animation to wow us; in 1942 they had Disney's dazzling new multiplane technique, not to mention a new level of human-like creature animation, which gave this innocuous woodland tale a literal depth that had never before been witnessed. That might result in a gigantic "whatever" from the Imax generation, but as a sanitised lesson in primal rites of passage - death, separation from parents, the birds and the bees - shot through with some ahead-of-its-time conservationism, this will have them eating out of its hand, if not exactly rushing into the great outdoors. Ages 5+
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Alan Parker, 1976
Is this the funniest film ever? The cast, at least, look like they're having a ball in Alan Parker's debut movie, a prohibition-set gangster yarn filled entirely with children. Tommy guns are replaced by "splurge" guns, cars are pedal powered, and no one gets more damage than a custard pie in the face. It helped make a star of Jodie Foster (it was released the same year as her more adult role in Taxi Driver); the songs are great, too. Ages 6+
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George Roy Hill, 1969
One of the most commercially successful products of the Hollywood new wave, and the creation of a now-iconic pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Newman was by far the bigger star at the time, and originally Steve McQueen was going to play opposite him; director George Roy Hill insisted on Redford when McQueen bailed over billing. With a potent mix of comedy and thrills, it's probably the most popular western ever made. Ages 10+
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Gerald Thomas, 1970
Any of the Carry On films up to Khyber has something to offer, but this is the one that has become Carry On In Excelsis. Kenneth Williams is the Khazi of Kalabar; Sid James is Sir Sidney Ruff-Diamond; and Joan Sims is Lady Joan Ruff-Diamond, married to the latter and lusted after by the former. The jokes, of course, are perfunctory; the production values are non-existent; the cultural sensibilities belong to another era, and must have seemed antique even when the film was made. But the cheerful vulgarity of the Carry On series is an essential part of the British cinema tradition. Don't bother getting a DVD; just wait for it to roll around on the TV schedules. Ages 8+
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Peter Lord and Nick Park, 2000
Aardman's first feature film is still a delight: a sort of Great Escape with feathers. They had just come off the stonking series of Wallace and Gromit shorts, and Nick Park and Peter Lord found themselves with serious Hollywood money behind them. They didn't venture too far - this is set in Yorkshire, rather than the Lancashire of Wallace and Gromit - but getting Mel Gibson involved to voice Rocky, the big-mouthed American rooster, meant they had joined the big leagues for real. Ages 5+
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Leo McCarey, 1933
Duck Soup is set in the bankrupt state of Freedonia, which is funded by wealthy widow Mrs Teasdale, who installs her own insane president, one Rufus T Firefly. So, what was the significance of this Marx brothers comedy? Groucho explained: "What significance? We were just four Jews trying to get a laugh." Chances are those young enough not to be acquainted with the fascist politics of the early 20th century will take it in this spirit too: a joyous, uproarious muddle of a masterpiece. Benito Mussolini, however, begged to differ - he banned it in Italy on the suspicion it may have been a veiled criticism. The Marx brothers were reportedly ecstatic. Ages 12+
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Steven Spielberg, 1982
Stockpile the hankies: it's time for Spielberg's most enduring and most traumatic classic (Saving Private Ryan included). Henry Thomas stars as the little boy from a broken home who, with moppet sister Drew Barrymore, befriends and shelters a wizened alien botanist stranded on Earth. It's an instructional film disguised as entertainment, for it'll teach all who view it something about love and upset and empathy, as well as - by the by - the origins of almost every mainstream American film made since. It's also brilliantly funny: witness Barrymore dressing up her new pal in flowery hat and frock, and ET getting sloshed on tinnies. Ages 6+
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Tim Burton, 1990
With Edward Scissorhands, director Tim Burton took the gothic European fairytale for a stroll through sterile American suburbia. He bade farewell to one star (Vincent Price in a poignant screen swansong) and hello to another in the form of Johnny Depp. Flushed from his dark castle hideaway by a simpering Avon lady (Dianne Wiest), the fantastical Edward crash-lands among the privet hedges like some soulful extra-terrestrial; a figure by turns celebrated and feared. But by the end of Burton's wild, off-kilter delight, we have him filed as the sanest inhabitant of a world slipped its moorings. Ages 10+
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Hayao Miyazaki, 2001
Hand-drawn animation may be going the way of the dinosaurs, but don't say that to Hayao Miyazaki. The guiding light of Japan's Studio Ghibli conjures up anime features that are bold and strange, raw and tender. Spirited Away is the best of the lot, lightly referencing the work of Lewis Carroll with its tale of a little girl's adventures in an enchanted bathhouse. Miyazaki's films have the logic and intensity of a dream. These are stories in which characters change shape, and evil turns to goodness. But, like a kindly schoolteacher, Miyazaki shows how hard graft and an innocent heart are the best defence against this curious world - and perhaps our own one as well. Ages 5+
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John Hughes, 1986
The definition of a film that's too cool for school. Matthew Broderick talks his way out of a day chained to his desk and sets off for a tour of Chicago with his slinky girlfriend Mia Sara and distinctly troubled best bud Alan Ruck. Arguably John Hughes's sunniest film, this is an 80s teen classic that hasn't dated in the slightest. Just remember to keep watching all the way through the credits. It's a 15 certificate, but there's nothing unduly disturbing for young teenagers here. Ages 15+
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Dean Parisot, 1999
Got a nascent geek on your hands? Coax them into laughing at themselves, and their idols, with this spryly-played spoof about the ageing cast of an axed cult space TV show who have to play their roles for real when an alien race needs their help. Tim Allen is the Shatner-style hunk gone to seed, Sigourney Weaver the female pin-up mostly famed for her lycra outfits, and Alan Rickman the classically trained, neurotic Spock-alike (Rickman walks off with every scene he's in). The sequences at Comic-Con in particular are horribly, hilariously accurate; this is slapstick with real substance. Ages 10+
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David Lean, 1946
If you can get them to swallow the black and white, and cope with the whiff of homework, David Lean's sumptuous epic has the power to win over even the most confirmed Dickens dissenter. Just give them a minute or two in the swirling mist of the graveyard , with Magwitch and his threats and vittles, and they'll be hooked. John Mills is a brilliantly open and likeable Pip, Alec Guiness a decidedly fishy Herbert Pocket, and the late Jean Simmons a haunting, luminous Estella. Ages 10+
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Bill Forsyth, 1981
Americans can keep James Dean as their poster-boy of adolescence. Diffident Brits are better served by gauche, awkward John Gordon Sinclair as Gregory, who finds his dreams of footballing glory torpedoed by the arrival of a fetching girl striker. Forsyth's coming-of-age love story plays out against a backdrop of muddy playing fields, greasy chippies and humdrum suburban semis. It's safe to say that these Job-like trials will be achingly familiar to adult viewers, who are now able to look back on that time with two parts pleasure and one part pain. For their offspring, I suspect, the film provides a tantalising taste of things to come. Ages 12+
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Kenny Ortega, 2006
There's no more effective way to get children hopping about without the aid of sugar than sticking the first instalment of Disney's franchise on the box. Start early though: certainly pre-Glee and the advent of cynicism, otherwise they may balk at the tale of Troy and Gabriella - the jock and the brainiac - who meet at a karaoke contest and bond over a love for music. It's snogless, it's bitchless and it's completely infectious. Ages 5+
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Brad Bird, 1999
One of the more unlikely animated adaptations of recent years. The source material was Ted Hughes's 1968 story The Iron Man; as reformulated by one-time Simpsons director Brad Bird, it became a tale about a small boy named Hogarth and his outsize robot chum, who becomes the target of a paranoid US military afraid of aliens (it's set during the first days of the space race, in the late 1950s). Beautifully drawn and undeniably moving, it's arguably the last great 2D cartoon before computer-generated images exerted their stranglehold on the medium. Ages 6+
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Ken Loach, 1970
Life in 1960s South Yorkshire might seem as remote as the Battle of Hastings to today's youngsters, what with talk of working in coalmines and being caned at school, but Ken Loach's beautifully sympathetic drama is a continuing source of comfort to any child who has been bullied at school or home, who has a hobby through which they truly feel at peace, or who has been told that they'll never amount to anything because of their academic performance. And Brian Glover's hilariously buffoonish football teacher has surely been used as a model in teacher training courses ever since. Ages 10+
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Merian C Cooper and Ernest B Schoedsack, 1933
Poor misunderstood Kong. He's just doing what comes naturally until mankind comes along, takes away his freedom and coerces him into a bewildering and hostile new world. It's basically a parable about a child being told to grow up. Talking of which, where are Kong's parents? The flatscreen, surround sound happy might prefer the whizzes and bangs of Peter Jackson's 2005 version, but the three-hour running time will strain all but the most patient of junior ape-lovers. You're better off with the 1933 original, which tells the story in half the time, and with twice the magic. Ages 8+
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Peter Jackson, 2001-2003
It's gruesome in parts; it goes on for ever; some of the acting is ropey at best; and anyone who's allergic to Tolkien's source text will be out in hives by the end of the first reel of the three films in Peter Jackson's trilogy. Nevertheless, any child who has read the books will not be denied the chance to see the cinema versions, and there are far worse ways to expose them to the magical spectacle that film can offer: the battle sequences are breathtaking; the landscapes - shot in New Zealand - are no less so; and the sheer scale of the project is nearly as bonkers as the books themselves. You might loathe Tolkien, but don't deny your children the chance to make their own minds up. Ages 10+
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Robert Stevenson, 1964
Setting impossibly high standards for the childminding profession, and setting back Americans' view of Britain at least half a century, Disney's Quality Street tin of colourful animation, domestic surrealism and chirpy song-and-dance is still well-geared towards sweet teeth and musical ears. The tunes, and Julie Andrews's ability to carry them (A Spoonful of Sugar, Chim Chim Cheree) are unforgettable, as is Dick Van Dyke's laughable cockney accent. The pro-feminist subtext, meanwhile (let's not forget matriarch Mrs Banks is off being a sufragette), makes this entirely suitable for the daughters of progressive parents. Ages 6+
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Lasse Hallström, 1985
A film for adults, but about 12-year-olds, My Life as a Dog will appeal to older children who are patient enough to follow subtitles (it's in Swedish) and happy to engage with characters rather than events. A young city boy is sent to live with relatives in the country, where he discovers a range of relationships, and begins to gain some understanding of the world and his role in it. It's a comedy, albeit one for which the word "bittersweet" might have been coined, that looks tenderly and understandingly at childhood - and with undeniable optimism and open-heartedness. Ages 10+
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Kinka Usher, 1999
It was never a big hit, but Mystery Men set the tone for the playful approach to pop culture mythology that was a prevailing trend over the subsequent decade. The Mystery Men are wannabe superheroes - devoid only of any useful powers - who keep trying to do good, only to be overshadowed at every turn by Captain Amazing. Then, at last, they get their opportunity to take on evil Casanova Frankenstein. It'll never make it into Cahier du Cinema, but the cleverness of the concept will appeal to kids who've already fallen in love with comic book culture, and adults will get pleasure from the array of skilled character actors going through their paces. Ages 10+
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Clarence Brown, 1944
The tagline tells you almost all you need to know: "The exciting story of a girl, a horse, and a dream. In colour." Adults can also gawp at 14-year-old Liz Taylor, playing the world's most well-spoken wannabe jockey; and at a young(ish) Mickey Rooney, as her doubtful trainer. For the horse-mad child this is a guaranteed insta-classic; even for sceptics, the Grand National fantasy sequences gallop along at such a lick they can't fail to thrill. There's a sweet, smart strain of self-examination, too. As Velvet says: "I want it all quickly because I don't want God to stop and think and wonder if I'm getting more than my share." Kierkegaard, eat your heart out. Ages 7+
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Alfred Hitchcock, 1959
So zippy and twisty is Ernest Lehman's screenplay, so stuffed with set-pieces and sharp suits and dastardly bad guys that this is the natural next port of call once your child has tasted Bond. Cary Grant is at his very best as unlucky advertising exec Roger Thornhill, mistaken for a government agent by a mob of foreign spies (including James Mason and Martin Landau), hotfooting it across the country to escape, and salvation. From here, show them Hitchcock's The 39 Steps: strikingly similar, right down to the masochistic love affair. Ages 12+
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Steven Spielberg, 1981
Director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas plundered the cheap cliffhanger serials of their youth to rustle up this irrepressible adventure romp, set in the run up to the second world war. Harrison Ford plays the intrepid archaeologist who races to get his hands on the fabled ark of the covenant before the Nazis can deliver it to Hitler. Few movies boast such sweep and gusto as Raiders of the Lost Ark, which juggles horror with humour and keeps the action sequences coming at a mile a minute. Ford's protagonist sets about his foes with a bullwhip although, famously, he's not averse to using a gun if the situation demands it. Ages 8+
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Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly, 1952
This gloriously athletic musical is like some fabulously nimble granny: you'd never guess it was quite so old. Partly, of course, it's that it is, itself, a period piece - a great happy tap dance on the grave of silent cinema, with Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds falling in love as they co-star in an all-singing new talkie. Once seen, it's a film that quicksteps round your brain for years to come, remembered whenever you unfurl your brolley. Plus, of course, it's a fail-safe way to encourage children to don wellies and head outside, even when it's chucking it down: an essential bit of kit, then, on any walking holiday. Ages 7+
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William A Seiter, 1933
Laurel and Hardy unwittingly launched a thousand TV sitcoms with their evergreen yarn about two henpecked buddies who escape their shrewish wives to attend a masonic jamboree. How is it that, while Chaplin has dated and Keaton been adopted by the aesthetes, the antics of Stan and Olly remain as reliably, hilariously populist as ever? Sons of the Desert catches the two at their peak; bumbling and wheedling and bouncing beautifully off each other. "Now isn't this nice?" smirks Hardy, when it looks as though their plan has worked to perfection. "It sure is," rejoins Laurel. "We're just like two peas in a pot." Ages 6+
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Sam Raimi, 2002
Though famed for delivering gore, Sam Raimi offered a faithful enough retelling of the Spider-Man e_SClB tale - Marvel's Stan Lee and Steve Ditko get story credits - with Tobey Maguire nerdish enough to be Peter Parker and bulky enough to be Spidey, and Kirsten Dunst a sweet Mary Jane Watson. As ever, the villain - Willem Dafoe - steals the show, as far as human content is concerned, but the real thrills come from those shots of Spider-Man swinging along the concrete canyons, building to building, raising the question: never mind the great responsibility - wouldn't it be ace to be a superhero? Ages 12+
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Rob Reiner, 1986
Lest we needed reminding, kids have an alarming tendency to lead wild, kamikaze existences; red in tooth and claw and beset by terror on every side. In Stand By Me (adapted from a novella by Stephen King), a quartet of teens walk into the woods in search a dead body. Along the way, they learn a little about themselves, and about the vagaries of adolescent friendships that seem rock-solid and undying until they blow away like gossamer. Rob Reiner's rites-of-passage drama is a bittersweet sayonara to the Huck Finn lifestyle; a film that gives us the honey as well as the hornets. Ages 10+
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George Lucas, 1977
Nothing George Lucas has done since can touch the first Star Wars - now branded as Episode IV: A New Hope - though its legacy in helping to push Hollywood back toward unapologetically commercial cinema may not be so great. But this is the founding myth of the galaxy far far away: Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, Princess Leia and R2D2, dogfights over the Death Star and "feel the force". You'd have a heart of stone not to enjoy it. Ages 5+
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Richard Donner, 1978
A real pioneer: the first big-budget comic book adaptation. (Before this, superhero movies were largely low-budget and threadbare.) But in the late 70s a lot of money was thrown at DC Comics' biggest star and the risk paid off: Superman was the second biggest film of 1978, after Grease. The effects may look a bit rocky now, but the movie is still a lot of fun, with a proper romance at its centre and a genuinely dastardly villain in Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor. Ages 6+
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Fletcher Markle, 1963
They don't make films like this any more. Three pets - two dogs and a cat - run off from their minders and embark on a 250-mile trip through the Canadian wilderness to get back to their proper home. It's a stirring tale of furry derring-do, even if the annoying commentary that Disney liked to plaster over its animal docus is present and correct. But it doesn't spoil things. Ages 5+
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Brad Bird, 2004
Although it's assumed that every Pixar masterpiece will appeal to every kid, that's not necessarily the case. The Incredibles, for example, spends so much time setting up its premise of a superhero family stuck in suburban normality - and does so by lovingly pastiching 50s family comedies - that impatient or younger kids might not hang around for the all-action second half, in which they put their superpowers to work. Once they're hooked, though, The Incredibles does not let go, though some parents might wish to follow up on its closing assertion that if every child is treated as special, none really can be special. Ages 6+
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Charles Chaplin, 1921
"A picture with a smile - and perhaps, a tear." Charlie Chaplin wrote his own review in the opening titles of this celebrated film, his first full-length feature after scores of shorts. Chaplin - of course - is the Tramp; he discovers an abandoned baby and, as the child grows, establishes a familial bond with him. Sentimental and affecting in a good way. Given the sophistication of children, there's probably a very narrow window before silent comedy simply becomes too primitive for them. Ages 8+
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Alexander MacKendrick, 1958
Warning: don't on any account let your child near the Tom Hanks 2004 remake (easily the worst film the Coens have made), for the original Ealing comedy is a lopsided delight: Katie Johnson plays sweet old parrot-owning Mrs Wilberforce, who lets a room in her King's Cross home to master criminal Alec Guinness, who, along with his motley mob (Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom), pose as a string quartet and use her as a pawn in an ambitious bank robbery. But they don't bargain for her astonishing innocence, her immortality, nor her friends popping by for tea. Ages 10+
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Charles Russell, 1994
Jim Carrey, at the height of his powers, was made to play the cartoon Mr Hyde hero of The Mask. The film owes more to the Merrie Melodies and Looney Toons cartoons of 50 years earlier than it does to any of the contemporary Hollywood comedies (it mines the same seam of combined nostalgia and forward thinking as Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), as Carrey loosed anarchy upon the world before reverting to his Jekyllesque day life as drab Stanley Ipkiss. It's a vivid, funny and enthralling - and as good as Carrey ever got. Ages 6+
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Lionel Jeffries, 1970
A small but perfectly formed kids' adventure: the man of the house imprisoned, a middle-class Edwardian family hole-up in a country cottage and manage to avert a train crash by waving enthusiastically. But The Railway Children is much more than the sum of its parts: it is all about the fear of adulthood, and the unbreakable bonds of family. You'll be sobbing for weeks after the impassioned final scene. Ages 7+
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Jacques Demy, 1964
A subtitled musical about pregnancy outside marriage in a French light-industrial town would appear an unlikely movie for kids. But the attraction of Jacques Demy's masterpiece doesn't lie in its storyline, but in its dazzling colours and the swoonsome music (by Michel Legrand). Watching children (especially girls) won't be worried about whether Catherine Deneuve will find both happiness and security, but be marvelling at the costumes, Deneuve's beauty and the fact that every single word is sung, rather than spoken. Watch with your children, and you can both be overcome by the magic. Ages 5+
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Jafar Panahi, 1995
A charming product of the Iranian new wave of the late 80s and 90s, with the hand of the master, Abbas Kiarostami, at work in the screenplay. The story isn't complex: a small girl is desperate to buy a new goldfish in a nearby market, but loses the treasured banknote she has been entrusted with - not once, but twice. In real time, we watch her heartwrenching attempts to get it back. Simple but beautiful film-making younger viewers will enjoy - if they can follow subtitles. Ages 10+
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Victor Fleming, 1939
Don't let young children watch this alone. For all that it's one of the greatest kids' films ever, it's also genuinely terrifying. The character of Miss Gulch/the Wicked Witch strikes the very heart of children's notions of security: you mean there are adults who care nothing for my safety, who would harm me if they could, and make no attempt to conceal their spite? The force of Oz derives from the fact that it is never simply an adventure, and even though Dorothy makes friends along the Yellow Brick Road, the viewer is always uncomfortably aware that she has been prematurely ripped from her family home: this is the stuff of which childhood nightmares can be made. Imagine how bleak it might seem without the songs. Ages 5+
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Robert Mulligan, 1962
Generations of schoolkids have watched this film (or read the book) to learn about standing up for the truth in the face of bigotry and prejudice. But the story of lawyer Atticus Finch defending a black man in court in the Deep South - as seen through the eyes of his daughter, Scout - is no dry, educational experience: it's laced with humour, chills, and a fantastically engaging infectiousness of spirit. Gregory Peck's very good too. Ages 10+
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Catherine Hardwicke, 2008
It won't be your son who suggests renting this, it'll be your daughter. And if you deny her, you refuse her access to the lingua franca of preteen girldom: the cult of Robert Pattinson. He plays the eternally 17 "good vampire" in rainy Forks, Washington, who lusts for and is lusted after by Kristen Stewart, mouth perpetually agape in bewilderment at the peculiar movie unfolding around her. In a genre that has traditionally involved strong passions, the whole point of Twilight is its chasteness. The horror is kept to a minimum, though younger viewers should certainly have adult company. Ages 12+
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Martin Rosen, 1978
By rights it should have been risible: a Wagnerian quest epic played out with bunny-rabbits. Happily, this 70s cartoon preserved the dark, gamey flavour of Richard Adams's classic source novel. Its hopping heroes flee a man-made disaster and run like vagabonds through dangerous terrain. Along the way, they encounter foxes, snares and railway lines, although the biggest threat comes from their own kind. Was there ever a more terrifying movie villain than the red-eyed General Woundwort, the pocket dictator who runs his warren like a Stasi state? Woundwort may be shorter than a hare, but he'll have your throat out as soon as look at you. Ages 6+
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Robert Wise, 1961
If you're looking for a way to bring Shakespeare's stories to life for your children, Leonard Bernstein's musical is among the best ways to start. The combination of indelible melodies, Stephen Sondheim's delightful lyrics, and truly spectacular dancing is wonderful enough; the New York gang backdrop makes this one of the classic musicals that can also draw in boys. What was shocking half a century ago now seems just a little quaint, and this once oh-so-adult movie is now an excellent parent-and-child viewing experience. Ages 8+
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Brian G Hutton, 1968
The atomisation of TV has led to the loss of televised movies as a shared cultural experience. Thirty years ago, every boy in the playground would have recognised the words "Broadsword calling Danny Boy" as being from Where Eagles Dare, which seemed to be on the telly every three weeks. Would they now? From an age before CGI, Where Eagles Dare depends on the fabulous unlikeliness of its plot - allied agents must get into and out of a Nazi mountaintop castle, accessible only be cable car - for its thrills. The stunts were ahead of the movie's time - the leap from the cable car into the frozen river was considered the most dangerous yet filmed - and the action is contained enough to be comprehensible. One for the boys, really, but there's plenty to enjoy. Ages 10+
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Mel Brooks, 1974
Mel Brooks can be criticised for his insistence on using the broadest brush possible to apply his slapstick. But children often enjoy that more than comedy more subtle and lasting. Here's a good way, too, to introduce them to one of the great legends of horror movies without offering anything in the least horrifying. Gene Wilder is the young descendant of the original scientists, frantically distancing himself from his ancestor by pronouncing his name Fron-kun-shteen, but who is unable to resist the lure of Mitteleuropean gothic. Silly, but fun. Ages 8+
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